A Failed Syria Policy

The United States has unintentionally prolonged the Syrian civil war, first by supporting a mythical “moderate Syrian opposition,” then by pursuing a contradictory strategy of attacking President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its most powerful enemy, ISIS, simultaneously.

There is no doubt that American policy in Syria has failed. American military action, overt and otherwise, has contributed to rather than abated the misery and suffering of the Syrian people and helped to create conditions that have led to a refugee crisis of biblical proportions.

But the answer is not for the United States to increase its efforts to remove a brutal dictator with a military intervention. We tried that before in Iraq, and the result was chaos and a failed state. Indeed, the American invasion of Iraq led directly to the strengthening of Al Qaeda and the birth of the even more extreme Islamic State.